Strep Throat is ravaging my body. Its a severe case by my own diagnosis seeing as how the doctor didnt even need to do the throat culture to know that I was infected. Good to know that the pus coating my tonsils is an indicator ...

It really hurts.

My trip to New York was an amazing time, and I suppose I should further elaborate.

I made it to Upstate New York in record time, mostly because I pushed my Valient Steed of a car to the Max by speeding the whole way up. I was bored and lonely, looking for a little adventure and hell, there are NO cops on Route 81 in the middle of the mountains. Out of sheer boredom I started taking pictures of the road and myself, which actually turned out pretty cool.

I made it into Ithaca pretty early, I wanna say around 4pm. Nate, my first stop on the route, was still in class so I had to occupy myself in the Ithaca Commons for an hour. After purchasing an "Ithaca Is Gorges" t-shirt and a cranberry muffin I got the call and was summoned to Ithaca College to visit Nathan. He lives in an amazing dorm in the East tower with a view of the entire town of Ithaca. I was seething with jealousy. I of course brought tidings of Jones Soda and taught him to jump in the elevators. The original plan was for me to stay with Nate for the evening but then head over to Cornell to sleep with Erin. Plans were changed however when it started snowing and I made the concious decision to not try to drive in the snow in the middle of the night. Hence, I stayed at Ithaca for the night. At about 1 am Nate and I decided to go sledding. We disassembled his closet and used the shelf as our makeshift tobaggan. Although we were pretty unsuccessful with the heavy plank of wood, we did end up finding an amazing metal disc sled just sitting there on the hill ... someone's loss, our ultimate gain.

The next morning I headed over to Cornell University to have lunch with Erin, my longtime friend from my elementary school days. We had a good time and I got to meet her tragically named roommate, Dorkus.

I returned to my car only to find that I had gained yet another parking ticket. Hopefully those wont count against me for this Red Bull job that I was just recently offered.

I then called up my friend from camp, Zach who also went to Cornell. We got some pitas and talked about life and I in turn realised how much I miss him. Hes a wonderful person, I wish I got to see him more.

After getting some directions from him scrawled on the back of a Pita Pit job application, I ventured forth towards Rochester.

After driving for miles and miles on a winding road next to one of the many Finger Lakes I finally found my way towards the Thruway and eventually Rochester.

I stayed with Jon Friday night and we had a great time. He took me to a basketball game at his school which was extrememly crazy. They have this huge cheering section of kids who have dubbed themselves the "Superfans" who all wear yellow t-shirts and scream insulting chants at the opposing team. I wish we had that at my High School.

The next morning Kate came over and we headed over to her house. It got pretty snowy so we rented movies and watched them as Rochester was quickly being blanketed in a foot of snow.

That night I got to spend some quality time with Kate, my favorite person in Rochester. The next day we hung out with Matt who ventured out of his house in the snow to see us.

That night Kate had to study so Matt took me out on the town, which turned into quite the adventure. First we had to pick up the Babysitter (his parents went out of town for the week and much to his chagrin hired a babysitter for him and his younger siblings ... hes 18). He got bad directions and she wasnt picking up her phone, so we ended up going door to door in the ghetto trying to find her. After finally locating the girl we had to head to the airport to pick up his parents car. After some more faulty directions by the babysitter, we found our way to the airport and into the garage. Unfortunatly Matt had no idea where his parents had parked their car, so we drove in circles aimlessly with my arm out the window hitting the "panic" button hoping to set off the car alarm so we could locate it. After getting more directions from his parents, we located the car by the alarm noises, which actually set off the alarms on cars around his parents car ... oops.

After the disaster he took me downtown to the Little Theater where they have live Jazz on Sundays. It was a great time and I'm glad I got to know him better.

The next morning Matt, Jon and I met Kate to get bagels and I headed back to Jon's before going out to Spencerport to see family.

Tuesday I spent the day relaxing at the Family's house and ended up doing my phone interview for camp.

Wednesday I went back to Jon's and then we headed out to Buffalo to see my Uncle and our friend from Camp Pat Wojo. We first stopped at University of Buffalo to have lunch with my uncle, his girlfriend and a friend of mine, Tai. Then Jon and I headed over to the mall to wait for Pat to get out of work.

At the mall I managed to lose my keys and my new hat in two seperate stores, something that I found impressive even for myself. Luckily I was able to locate both items just in time to meet Pat. He, unfortunatly, was pretty busy that day and only had time to grab a quick bite to eat before we had to leave and he had to go to a meeting.

That night I stayed with Jon for my last night in Rochester. We watched movies and hung out.

The next day Kate came over and Jon made us pancakes which were delicious. Then I went shopping with Kate, Back to Jon's to say goodbye, and then Back out to Kate's house.

I found her doing her amazing art project, and then we ended up launching into an amazing conversation that left us in histerics and me 2 hours late to get on the road.

This is where disaster struck. I was supposed to meet Nate back in Ithaca around 4, but actually left Kate's house at about 4:15. Then I headed over to Ithaca on the Thruway, took the right exit, got onto another highway and thought I was going the right direction until I ended up back in Rochester. I had gone to Ithaca and back to Rochester (a 2 hour drive) without even realising it. So I had to turn around and drive all the way back, speeding on old country roads hoping to god I didn't die.

So I was about 3 or 4 hours late to Ithaca.

Nate and I hung out all night, played a game of beer pong, where he was a trooper and did all the drinking, and then we headed to bed so I could be well rested for my drive home the next day.

He made me a grand total of 12 CD's for the ride home, I can't even describe how much I love getting new music.

The next morning, after only getting 4 hours of sleep, I headed back to Jersey. Ugh the ride back was so boring and hard, but I had the high from my great trip to carry me back.

and then I return to Strep Throat ...